Explanation of Hosting

If you have created a web site and you wish other persons to visit it, you must copy your site to a publicly reachable web server.

Where to host your site?

Even though you can use your own PC as a web server, it is a more common practice to let a hosting provider host your web site. The prime reason for that is the greater reliability and the better visibility of your website, because hosting service providers have high-end hardware and allocate a far greater monthly traffic usage allowance, which guarantees the quicker access to your website from all over the globe.

Hosting solutions

Select a hosting solution, which allows you to register domains and to create e-mailbox accounts. A lot of web hosting companies, like us at DwellingHost.net, offer a cost-free domain registration as a bonus if you open a web hosting account.

Hosting your website yourself

Hosting your web site on your own personal web server is certainly an option, but only if you have time and the necessary competence. There are some things that you have to consider, among them the hardware and software expenses. To develop a "real", proper website, you will need to purchase some powerful server hardware, because you cannot count on a cheap personal computer to accomplish the job. You will also need a constant high-speed connection without network outages, which generally is offered at a rather steep price. If you are using licensed software for your site, you will have to pay a license fee too. You may also need to cope with bugs and software vulnerabilities. You will need to keep your web server constantly running in an environment where "everything could happen". If you do not possess the needed technical know-how, you will have to engage a system administrator to handle these things on your behalf, which will render the price of hosting your website on your own even steeper than that of a dedicated hosting web server offered by a hosting distributor.

A dedicated web hosting server furnished by a hosting company

Renting a hosting server from a hosting provider is a fine decision if you want to establish a heavy resource-demanding website or a corporate web page that has very strict security requirements. The biggest benefits of using a dedicated hosting server are the breakneck-speed connection, the permanent power supply and the very powerful hardware. Certain hosting service providers, again like us at DwellingHost.net, provide VPS hosting and semi-dedicated hosting services, which are based on very powerful web servers that can be divided among several clients. You can also anticipate them to offer effective load balancing solutions and the necessary backup servers.

Safety and reliability

Hosting distributors are specialized in providing hosting solutions and since this is what they do to earn a living, you can anticipate them to offer continuous Internet connection, the newest software updates and the best malware protection, as well as system administrators available 24/7/365 to assist you in the event of an emergency.

Choose your hosting accounts provider

What you have to take into account when picking your web hosting plans provider is the reliability of the offered web hosting services. Make sure that the web hosting packages provider of your choosing offers a round-the-clock customer support service. Do not put yourself in a position where you cannot resolve critical issues instantaneously because you have to wait until the next working day. What's more, if you select a shared website hosting package, which features a 24-7 client support service, this suggests that there constantly will be system administrators available to solve any critical predicaments as soon as they materialize, which is a very desirable thing.

Day-to-day backups

Make sure that your hosting plans provider offers everyday backups with the offered hosting services, or else you may forfeit some precious data in case of a hardware failure or because you have deleted something unwittingly. The presence of daily data backups is usually pointed out in the web hosting distributor's Terms of Use.

Traffic and disk drive storage space

When selecting your hosting accounts provider, give specific attention to the bandwidth quota restrictions. Make sure that you don't have to overpay for unanticipated high volumes of traffic if your website becomes more regularly visited. There are many web hosting companies that offer unlimited traffic at present, so the best step to take is to make sure that you have made the right decision prior to opening an account.

Content restrictions

Give special attention to the web hosting supplier's content limitations. If you want to publish images or to broadcast live video or audio, make certain that you can accomplish that. Furthermore, the majority of hosting suppliers put limitations as far as using their services for file storage purposes is concerned, so if you upload too much content that is not connected or directly linked to your web site, your website hosting account could get suspended. Hence, reading the web hosting provider's TOS, regardless of how time-consuming and tedious this might be, is extremely important.

Electronic mail capabilities

Most hosting suppliers nowadays also provide electronic mail services with all their website hosting offerings. It is not a bad idea to verify if the hosting provider of your choice offers such options as well, so as to be certain that you'll obtain all the functionalities that you require in return for your cash.